what style you want is personal preference.i think a khuk works better than any other style for chopping but a traditional style is what will work best for normal machete use like clearing leaves and vines,jungle type stuff.

as far as brands go i would really go with cold steel.i'm not a knives test guy but i was very impressed with what that $10 cold steel machete could take abuse wise.i have two of the khuk style ones.

ontario also makes a great machete.

while there are some more expensive ones out there than these i really dont think that there are any tougher.

i had the BRK&T KSF machete.it worked great but to me a machete sees the ugliest work out of any of my blades,always accidentally going into the dirt and hitting stones and all types of stuff and i didnt like the idea of doing that with a $200 machete when a $10 one will do the job with 90% of the same efficiency.

put your own convex grind and edge on,strip the coating and you got the same thing